Monday, February 17, 2014

Santa Barbara - Getty Museums and the Theater

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Birds of Paradise brighten our living room.
Early in the past week, our dog walk took us up into the hills of Santa Barbara.  Starting at the old mission, we passed the ruins of a grist mill and a well from the mission's early days and climbed up, up into a neighborhood of grand homes with stunning views. We ended up in a small park high above the city with sweeping views of the entire city and the Channel Islands sparkling in the Pacific under the morning sun.

City, Ocean, Island
The walk was the latest gem uncovered by The Queen of Finding Things (aka The Queen of Getting Things Done).  Whether you are seeking your misplaced keys, the grocery list you had a minute ago,  the glass of wine you just set down or something more substantial - an interesting hike or an obscure theater with an interesting play, she is again your Guide par Excellence.

The Queen of Finding Things
We were on our bikes again early in the week for a trip to Montecito, home of numerous movie stars and celebrities (none of whom answered their doorbell when we rang).   So we walked the beach and thumbed our noses at them.  On our return, we cycled on a residential street parallel to "The 101," the main north-south route along the coast.  For about a mile or so, we outpaced the freeway traffic as we cycled at a leisurely pace.

On another day, we discovered a local beach, where we lazed about for a while, reading under the warm sun, listening to the surf, and munching on fruit, French bread and cheese.  Carol went off to walk the beach.  When she was gone, I looked up from my reading to see something of considerable size moving steadily along the coast a hundred or so yards offshore.  I couldn't make out what it was, but I thought, "A whale!  I've finally seen a whale!"  (Over several visits to the California coast in whale migration season in recent years, Carol and I seemed to be the only people who haven't spotted a whale.)  Still, I wasn't sure.  Something just didn't look right.  A young mother with a child in a stroller walked by and, looking for a verification of my find, I asked her if we were seeing a whale.  She stared for several seconds and then said, "That's a guy on a paddle board.  I can see his feet."  The heartbreak of aging eyes and unruly imagination!  I think he's a whale, and she can distinguish his feet!

We ended our beach holiday with a drink at the bar, after the whale sighting.

Life's a Beach!
On Valentine's Day we walked Rowdie early and were on the road for an all-day adventure at the musuems founded by J. Paul Getty, the Getty Villa in Malibu and the Getty Center in Los Angeles.  As we drove the last miles along the Pacific Coast Highway we were surprised to see a skywriter.  I don't think I've seen a skywriter since I was a boy, vacationing with my parents at the Jersey shore.  We watched him form the word HAPPY by the time we reached the Villa entrance. 

The Getty Villa in Malibu is an authentic recreation of a first century A.D. Roman villa.  Carol is taking an online class from Yale on Ancient Roman Architecture through Coursera.com.  She was thrilled with the experience of visiting the villa, since it complemented what she has been learning for the past weeks.  We took two excellent docent-led tours of the villa, one focused on the gardens and one focused on the architecture.

Center Courtyard, Getty Villa

Villa Columns
Villa Pool
Detail, Garden Mosaic, Getty Villa
 The Roman philosopher, Pliny the Elder,  died in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in August, 79 A.D.  His nephew and heir (and quite an interesting character himself), Pliny the Younger, was eighteen years old at the time of the eruption and watched it from miles away.  Twenty-five years later he wrote about what he saw.  He wrote that the smoke and ash billowing from the volcano created a cloud that resembled a stone pine, spreading as it grew new branches.

Torrey Pine, known to the ancient Romans as the Stone Pine
After lunch, we were off for the ten-mile drive on the twisting and turning Sunset Boulevard to the Getty Center.  It sits high on a hill, like a fortress, overlooking West Hollywood.  It's a huge complex, daunting in its size, but spectacular for the architecture of Richard Meier.

The Getty Center towers above the everlasting haze of Los Angeles.

I liked the Getty Museum for the architecture and the grounds alone.  We gave ourselves an hour, and I used mine well in the Center for Photographs, where I saw the intriguing photographs of Hiroshi Sugimoto and an exhibit of photography collected by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.  Victoria was captivated by the new art form of photography and developed a passion for it.  Inspired by the exhibits I went out and worked on my own portfolio.

Welcoming Vision of The Getty Center, designed by architect Richard Meier
Exhibition Pavilion, J. Paul Getty Museum
West Pavilion: Paintings, Sculpture, Drawings and Center for Photographs
Pool, Getty Museum
Stairway, Getty Museum
Stairway, Getty Museum
The week ended with the Queen of Finding Things finding an obscure theatrical performance in a downtown art gallery Saturday night.  How obscure?  Well, there were perhaps a dozen and a half folding chairs set up facing a small corner of the gallery where three actors performed without benefit of props.  Six of the chairs were occupied, four by friends or family of the actors, two by yours truly.  The play - "Art," by Yasmina Reza - was quite entertaining.

Theater Night





Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Santa Barbara - International Film Festival (and more)

Mission Santa Barbara
Established in 1786 by Franciscan priest, Fermin Lasuén
Santa Barbara Bay, near Downtown
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We have one week under our belts in our new home in Santa Barbara, a short twenty-minute walk (and even shorter bicycle ride) to downtown shops and restaurants.  A few blocks past downtown - the Pacific Ocean.  We've moved to a city twice as large as San Luis Obispo, more of a tourist attraction and clearly more pricey.  We talked about how we could sell our Minneapolis home and buy a modest home in San Luis Obispo.  Well, we could sell our Minneapolis home and maybe rent a small place here in Santa Barbara.  Maybe.

Our Santa Barbara Home, 1901 Bath Street

Settled in our new home-away-from-home
 We arrived in the midst of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.  Carol had given me four movie passes in my Christmas stocking, and our landlady gave us four additional passes upon our arrival.  So we were off and running, our first film festival ever.  We saw four exceptional films - "Wadjda" from Saudi Arabia, "One Way Ticket to the Moon" from Poland, "Fifteen Years and One Day" from Spain and "Barefoot," a US film.  If you get a chance to see any of these, grab the opportunity.  "Wadjda" and "Fifteen Years and One Day" were my favorites.  "Wadjda" is a story of an independent-minded teenage girl in a repressive society; it was directed by a woman!  (Saudi Arabia rushes boldly into the 20th century.)

Big Doings in Santa Barbara
Part of the film festival was the celebrity events held each evening, talks/interviews with celebs in a large theater downtown that drew huge crowds.  We were oblivious to the existence of these until we walked downtown for our first restaurant dinner midweek.  We turned the corner onto State Street, a half block from our restaurant and ran smack dab into a crowd of hundreds of people, bright lights, cordons, security staff.  A volunteer informed us how to get to our restaurant and added that the night's event featured Oprah!  As we walked by the cordoned off area, a shiny black SUV pulled up, the buzz of the crowd rose to a roar, a car door opened, and there she was!  I admit that I found myself like hundreds of others, holding my cellphone high and snapping photos blindly.

OMG!  Oprah!  Over here!  Over here!
 The next night the evening event featured Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio.  We again found ourselves walking by, since it was First Thursday, a downtown arts promotion.  I hope Oprah wasn't there to see the crowd, which had to be four times larger than her crowd.

Santa Barbara has a nice farmer's market on Tuesday afternoons.  It's not as big or as flashy as the San Luis Obispo nighttime affair which includes street entertainers and booths touting everything from Atheism to Zen, but it's a chance to stock up on fresh produce for the week in a beautiful outdoor setting.

Downtown Farmers' Market
We've been on our bicycles a lot, learning the lay of the land.  We've cycled the neighborhood, downtown and along the coast (after climbing a monster hill as steep as any Tuscan hill town).  We drove out to the University of California Santa Barbara campus and were unimpressed by a rather drab-looking place.  It is, however, right on the Pacific Ocean. It also has a pretty nice food coop.  We took our first hike yesterday, a rugged climb up into Santa Ynez Mountains that yielded spectacular views of the entire city and the Channel Islands.

Santa Cruz Island seen from high on a hiking trail in the Santa Ynez Mountains
Aidan el Plano and Flat Stanley with Carol on the Pacific coast at UCSB
Santa Ynez Mountains as seen from Downtown
My new MacBook's FaceTime feature has been a positive improvement to our California experience.  We've chatted face-to-face with Ellen and Paul and our grandsons each week, a real treat for us.  I've met regularly with my writers' group and have not missed one weekly Beer Hour with my good friend, John.

FaceTime Family Fun
 And to conclude my journal for this week, some of my favorite images:

Secret Garden B and B, Owner's Oil Paintings

Mission Santa Barbara Detail
Downtown Resident
Late Afternoon
Garden Gate

Sunday Sails, Santa Cruz Island

Wednesday, February 05, 2014

SLO - Week Four: Time To Move On


Bicycling is a part of the rhythm of San Luis Obispo.

Cal Poly students ride bikes to class.  Workers on bicycles join the morning rush hour - young men and women in blue jeans and clean shirts heading downtown, the straps of pouches slung over their shoulders; laborers with tough, sun-darkened skin and worn, sturdy work clothes.   Homeless men ride utilitarian hybrids, backpacks filled with everything they own.  Going where?  Moving so as not be be standing still?  Squadrons of fit young men and women, bedecked in lycra shorts and brightly colored jerseys pedal swift road bikes out Broad Street into the countryside on Saturday mornings as the sun rises over the hills.  They are as silent and graceful as a whispering flock of birds.

More streets than not, it seems, have bike lanes clearly delineated by bright white lines that leave no doubt in anyone's mind as to who belongs where on the road.  Bicycles flow through the city more or less seamlessly with their four-wheeled counterparts.  

Carol and I have joined the ranks of cyclists for the month, cycling all over town.  I've never felt safer on a bicycle in an urban environment.  At one major intersection near our home, I regularly join three lanes of left turn traffic across a vast intersection, confident of my place in the stream and confident that the cars moving with me are aware of my presence.  Not that I'm not alert and and checking the moving vehicles around me at all times.

Bicycles seem to be accepted as part of the traffic here and have been given their place.  One thing I've noticed is that bicyclists for the most part obey the traffic laws, far more frequently than they do back home.  No running red lights just because they can.  Pedestrians, too.  I've waited at "Do Not Walk" lights at downtown intersections with other walkers who patiently wait for the light to change, even if there isn't a car approaching within a block.  Drivers of cars, for their part, hit the brakes as soon as they see a pedestrian take the first step toward a crosswalk.  It all just seems to work.

On our last weekend in town, we received a visit from Soren Bondesen, his wife, Andrea, and  two-month old Isabella.  Soren lived with us as an exchange student almost twenty years ago.  He and Andrea now live in Los Angeles.  We last saw Soren about six years ago when we visited his family in Denmark.  This reunion and the chance to meet Andrea were a highlight of our last week in SLO.

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Lunch at Luna Red with Soren, Andrea and Isabella
The day before our departure from SLO we toured wineries near Paso Robles with our friends, Tom and Lana Cochrun, whom we met last year at an arts event in downtown SLO.  We traded contact information last year and promised to keep in touch.  We kept the promise and ended up having some good times together this year.  Tom and Lana know their wines and the wineries of Paso Robles and guided us to some fine winemakers - Le Cuvier, Windward Vineyard (exclusively pinot noirs) and Pipestone Vineyard.

Lana and Tom Cochrun at Pipestone Vineyard

Olive Trees at Kiler Ridge Olive Oil Farm
Tuscany?  Or California?  The wine country around Paso Robles.

Somehow the month went by and we almost didn't take the one hike I most wanted to take, the trek up Bishop's Peak,  one of the hardest hikes in the area.  We made it just a couple days before we pulled up stakes and left for Santa Barbara.   The last hundred feet or so to the tippy-top requires a bit of rock climbing that demands some agility and daring.  We did it three years ago, but I confess I wasn't so sure this time.  Then Carol set off from our lunch spot and scampered up to the top.  What choice did I have?

Carol and Aidan el Plano atop Bishop's Peak
 I'll conclude the San Luis Obispo portion of the journal with some more local images.  We're off to Santa Barbara and new adventures.
 
Young people on a SLO afternoon
Chorro Street

Wednesday afternoon farmers' market in the Grange parking lot, a block from our home
Follow the wine trail.
Wine country